Any knowledgeable sports fan knows that there are “annoying” teams, created by “ratty” playstyle *COUGH COUGH–FLORIDA PANTHERS*, favor from the league *ACHOO–KANSAS CITY CHIEFS* or insufferable fan bases *COUGH–NEW YORK YANKEES*. All are clear examples, except none intertwine with each other. The most “ratty” and annoying team, which exerts a combination of these three factors throughout sports is clear: the Los Angeles Dodgers.

For years, the Dodgers have been tormenting Major League Baseball—making the playoffs for thirteen straight years. They have been able to “produce” superstar talent in stacked rosters throughout that time. How? By buying out all of the best talent in the league.

To name an example, talk about Shohei Ohtani in the 2023-2024 off-season, widely considered the best baseball player of all time. He had been coming off a phenomenal year, coming off of a 40+ HR statline along with the Most Valuable Player award.

He clearly wasn’t going to re-sign with his former team, the Los Angeles Angels, and many teams didn’t have the money that he had wanted. There were still teams that competed for him in free agency, like the Toronto Blue Jays, but it was clear that he would land with the Dodgers. A record-breaking $700 million contract was to be arranged, and he was set to be MLB’s golden boy for years to come.

The Dodgers organization planned and bought out most of the talent coming from the MLB in free agency, and constructed a roster worth $2.2 billion (with Ohtani’s real contract value, adding deferred money). With Ohtani on the lineup, along with a roster that was stacked with names like Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers won back-to-back World Series championships.

Think about the Dodgers with the perspective of the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers. In the playoffs, the Brewers played their division rivals, the Chicago Cubs, and beat them in 7 games, even with the Cubs lineup having 2 times the payroll of the Brewers. It was with confidence that the Brewers headed to the “NLCS”, and went on to play a team that has a total contract value of $2.2 billion in superstars.

Realistically, that series isn’t going anywhere and the difference in salary affecting performance was clear. Over the past nine years, the only Brewers “superstar” that has been re-signed is Christian Yelich, meaning that the Brewers have lost Freddy Peralta, Willy Adames, Devin Williams, and Corbin Burnes in free agency over the years to a lack of funding from the owner Mark Attanasio, who only has a net worth of $1.9 billion.

Sources like The Athletic have explained that the Dodgers winning back-to-back championships and paying out all of the superstars has grown the game of baseball, because of increased viewership, however, during the 2025 MLB Playoffs, the primary source of viewership came from exciting American League matchups, like the Toronto Blue Jays facing off against the Seattle Mariners.

The Dodgers in the MLB postseason have actually boasted a decline in average viewership, when they swept the Brewers in four games. The only increase that the Dodgers have seen in viewership is in Japan, where many bandwagon Dodger fans watch the team for players like Shohei Ohtani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The performance of Shohei Ohtani in the postseason has single-handedly decreased viewership; it’s likely that the 17% decrease is because the average MLB fan likely won’t tune into a game where a team with the best player in baseball is dominating another one.

Along with the Dodgers organization ruining the fun for the MLB, it’s also true that Dodgers fans have ruined baseball for other fans.

The fanbase is aggressive about their team, and that can sometimes lead to violence within their stadium.

On March 31, 2011, a series between the Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers’s division rivals, kicked off at Dodger Stadium.

Giants fan Bryan Stow and a group of his friends had driven from Northern California to attend the game, and after it had ended, they were walking in the stadium parking lot, when Stow was blinded by a punch in the head. He fell on the pavement and was kicked repeatedly, finally being rushed to the emergency room unconscious. This event has incapacitated Stow for the rest of his life, who can’t drive a car or live on his own.

This clearly isn’t all Dodgers fans’ behavior, but it’s not a good example for other sports fans, and has become the stereotype of the organization’s fans. The situation is a clear example of Dodgers fans who take their team too seriously, and will commit egregious acts to show their support for their team.

For right now, the only thing that MLB fans can do to stop this organization from ruining baseball is to support on social media and in person the implementation of a league-wide salary cap.